Russia Turns To Typewriters To Protect Against Cyber Espionage

Russia has opted to purchase a slew of old-school typewriters in
order to protect state secrets, reports Pro-Kremlin
newspaper Izvestia.

Although notable in the wake of Wikileaks and Edward Snowden
revelations about the NSA and cyber spying, an
official told Agence France Presse, "This purchase has been
planned for more than a year now.”

In the mid-1970's, American intelligence officials
suspected that the typewriters in the embassy were being
bugged.

A 1979 inspection trip yielded nothing, perhaps because the
Russians learned in advance about the trip through memos typed on
the compromised machines. In 1984, the experts returned, armed
with a letter signed by President Reagan that ordered embassy
personnel not to initiate any communications with Washington
about a pending swap of equipment.

Hours after the team arrived in Moscow, according to
Administration officials, a cable directly violating the order
was sent from the embassy. But X-rays revealed that the
typewriters had indeed been compromised.

Oddly enough, bugged typewriters used a form of bugging
called "keystroke logging," which is exactly the same terminology
used for a
similar "listening" computer software hackers and spies use
to read a user's traffic.